The Cousins Carstairs
by OldValyriaRises
Summary: Emma finally is properly introduced to her long-lost relative. WARNING: This story contains SPOILERS from COHF! One-shot.


_A/N: So, I read City of Heavenly Fire over the weekend, and couldn't resist writing this scene. For all of you who haven't read it yet, THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS. _

_I wish I was as talented as Cassandra Clare. Alas, the characters are her genius, not mine. _

* * *

If there was one thing that fifteen year old Emma Carstairs hated, it was trying to get demon ichor out of clothes. She stood by the sink in the Institute kitchen, scrubbing relentlessly at the soles of her brand new sneakers. That stupid Moloch demon had just popped up out of nowhere while she was taking a stroll on the beach this morning, so she hadn't been in gear when she'd killed it.

Good, clean kills always made her happy, but that one had been messier than she'd expected. Messy meant _laundry_, which was a curse word as far as Emma was concerned.

"Em?"

She didn't pause in her scrubbing to glance around and check who had entered the room. There was no need – she knew that voice as well as her own. Julian Blackthorn, her _parabatai_ and best friend, sidled up to the sink beside her and swivelled, propping both elbows against the draining board.

"Where have you been?" she demanded. "I've been looking for you all morning."

"I took Tavvy out for pancakes," he responded with a sad sort of shrug. "He was having nightmares again last night. I thought it would cheer him up."

A dull throb, like that of a recently healed wound, seized Emma's heart. She knew that Octavian – Tavvy – suffered from nightmares. They all did. There wasn't a week that went past where Emma herself didn't wake up in the early hours of the morning drenched in a cold sweat and stifling a scream into her pillow. Three years had passed, but the horror was as fresh in her mind as though it had been yesterday.

The cold, black eyes of Sebastian Morgenstern laughing at her as he pulled the knife she'd thrown from his chest. The cruel light in Andrew Blackthorn's expression as he beckoned Tiberius to him in Idris. The sound of Jules's knife whistling through the air, and the wet slice of the blade through flesh as it found its mark. And, worst of all, the picture in the file she had stolen from the Consul's office. The picture of her parents' water-logged bodies, sprawled on the beach looking up at the clear, Californian sky with unseeing eyes.

Julian's fingers found the exposed skin of her upper arm, tracing out a familiar message.

_A-R-E Y-O-U O-K_?

Emma nodded mutely. Her throat was too tight for her to trust herself to speak. Glancing up into his blue-green eyes, she forced herself to take a deep breath. _They're gone, _she told herself. She remembered her father's words when he'd given her Cortana, what seemed like a lifetime ago now. _Shadowhunters are the Angel's weapons. Temper us in the fire, and we grow stronger. When we suffer, we survive. _

Emma had suffered. They had all suffered. And yet, they were still standing.

"Zachariah is here to see you," Jules said gently. "That's what I came to... is that _ichor_?"

He reached over and plucked one of Emma's ruined sneakers from the sink before she could protest, turning it this way and that in his hand. A brief flash of fear flooded his handsome features before he reined it in again – Emma knew how much he hated the idea of her fighting demons without him there to back her up. He dropped the sneaker back into the sink and fixed her with a hard look.

"What happened?"

"Moloch demon. It's nothing," she replied, setting down the other shoe and stepping away from the sink in search of a dish rag to dry her hands. "Zachariah said he was here to see me, specifically?"

"Don't change the subject." Julian followed her like a shadow as she searched the kitchen, dripping water from her fingertips as she went. "When did you fight a Moloch demon?"

"This morning. I just kind of stumbled on it."

"You went hunting without me?" Jules tried to keep the hurt out of his voice, but Emma heard it anyway. A familiar pang went through her chest. She hated hurting him, or seeing him hurt. Lately, she had been pulling away a little, and he could sense it. It wasn't his fault – there was just something different about their every interaction, something that made her feel confused and pained inside, that she was trying to avoid.

"Not exactly. It just came at me out of nowhere."

Julian gave her a look that said he was far from convinced. "Em, if there was something bothering you, you'd tell me, right?"

"Right," she replied instantly, though the word tasted like a lie. It was new territory for her – she had never lied to Jules before. "Where's Zachariah?"

"In the training room," he said. "But..."

"I'll talk to you later," she promised. Again, hurt and confusion flickered in his irises, and Emma realised that he'd been expecting her to invite him along to talk to Zachariah with her. She winced internally and laid a hand on his arm. "I'm really okay, Jules."

"Promise?"

"I promise." On impulse, she stood on tiptoe and planted a kiss on his cheek. Julian's skin was warm, flushed almost. Her lips tingled from the contact, and she desperately tried to ignore the unfamiliar tightening in her stomach as she stepped away from him.

If possible, he now looked even more confused than he had a minute ago.

Not wanting to get dragged into another uncomfortable conversation, she hurried out of the kitchen. The Los Angeles Institute was a labyrinth of corridors, but she navigated them with the ease that came from having been raised in the place. Her feet carried her on autopilot – up the main staircase and along the corridor towards the training room. She paused outside the half-closed door, curiosity stirring inside her.

Why would Zachariah want to talk to her alone?

Emma took a deep breath before pushing the door open in a decisive motion. Zachariah was standing by the window with his back to her, admiring the view. He was a tall, slender man with a head of dark hair. As she closed the door behind her, he turned to greet her, a smile curving his lips upwards. Very handsome, even by Shadowhunter standards, Zachariah looked to be in his early twenties, though his years as a Silent Brother meant he was far older than that. If she looked carefully, Emma could still make out the faded runes that marked his high cheekbones, remnants from his time in the Silent City.

"Zachariah," she greeted, feeling inexplicably nervous. It wasn't the same sort of nerves she'd recently come to associate with prolonged exposure to Jules, but it was nervousness all the same. "You wanted to see me?"

"Emma Carstairs," he said in that rich, English accent of his that was so different, and yet somehow the same, from the whispery mental voice he had once had. "Thank you for meeting with me. There's something that I wish to talk to you about."

His diction and vocabulary was lifted from a bygone age, she thought, but he had a comforting presence all the same. "Okay..."

"Maybe we should sit?" he suggested, indicating the window seat. Emma shrugged, chewing on her lip, and crossed the room to join him. She perched on the edge of the seat, back ramrod straight and eyes wary.

"Where's Tessa?" Zachariah was rarely seen out of the company of the pretty warlock.

"She thought it best that I spoke to you alone, and I agree. How are you?"

"I'm fine." The lie left her lips so naturally this time – Emma had always had a talent for deceiving everyone except Julian. He was usually the only one who could see through her. "What do you want to talk to me about?"

Zachariah took a deep breath, like he was about to give her momentous news. "I've decided to reclaim my old name. The name I had before I was a Silent Brother, and I wanted to talk to you about it. Doubtless, you'll have some questions."

"Oh," Emma mumbled. Her head was beginning to hurt. "What is it? Your name, I mean?"

Zachariah smiled, his slightly slanted eyes crinkling at the corners. "James," he said softly. "My name was... _is_... James Carstairs."

There was a beat of silence, and Emma had no idea how to fill it. She blinked at him, her brain hurtling off at a million miles an hour. "_Carstairs_?"

"Yes."

"So... we're related?"

"Distantly," Zachariah – no, _James Carstairs_ – smiled again. "We're cousins, I suppose. After a fashion."

"James," she breathed, testing it out on her tongue. She had thought that she didn't have any family left to her after her parents' death. But Zach- no, James – was there, right in front of her. A Carstairs, just like her.

"Jem," he said. "I used to go by Jem when I was younger."

"Jem," she repeated. "Well, I... I don't know what to say." Emma was reeling. Part of her felt utterly bewildered, and another part suddenly felt as though a weight had been eased from her shoulders, that the burden she was carrying had been halved by this revelation.

Hesitantly, he offered her his hand. She stared at it for a moment. Long-fingered, slender and pale. A musician's hand, or an artist's. Like Julian. Reaching over, Emma placed her own palm in his.

"It's nice to meet you, Jem Carstairs," she whispered.

"The pleasure is all mine, Emma."

They shook.


End file.
